I think this looks great for modern merfolk decks, but I don't think cube it the right home for this. Just seems really low impact for a creature the vast majority of the time. Rishadan Port is so good because its "free" since it comes strapped to an untapped land, but this costs you a whole card, has an ability that isn't typically worth investing mana into in the game, and only really goes in one deck.
It gets about half of the usual suspect reanimator targets, so it's probably worth at least a test. Pretty much none of the common inclusions in green for the archetype are viable targets.
Unless I'm missing something doesn't this hit all of the common green fatties?
Card is cool, just seems a little unimpactful imo. Probably sweet past like 540+ though, and I'm sure it has a lot of cool synergies available in bigger cubes.
I don't think the evoke on this card is all that good, but the baseline as a 4 drop seems pretty solid, and the upside of having the evoke available in very specific situations will surely be great. You can't target yourself with the discard which is super rough for reanimateor decks, but you can still play this in combo decks and it should be serviceable as aggro and midrange top end too. Hopefully the body isn't too anemic to play this in Dimir control, but that would honestly just be gravy. Excited to see the whole cycle of these free evoke guys, and can't wait to double dip on them with some Restoration Angel shenanigans (or Mimic Vat/Flesh Carver/etc for people who play that type of stuff)
We cut FTK a while ago because it literally just doesn't have any enemy targets a lot of the time, and this is even more difficult to cast on curve (whether at cmc 2 or 4). Sniping a mana dork or enemy 2 drop will feel so sweet when it works on turn 2, but I don't think that is at all realistic most of the time. Maybe 450+ or 540+? Red 2s are mostly pretty ass so this might still get a test but I wouldn't be surprised if this doesn't make the cut for us.
Man I honestly hate this card it feels so watered down, but Entomb is legitimately broken so honestly this might still be really good in reanimateor decks. Cut would probably be Oona's Prowler for us, just a bummer that this misses (imo) by far the two best fatties in cube in Griselbrand and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite.
Could be a Sneak Attack vs Through the Breach situation where the prior is literally a hundred times better than the latter, but its so broken regardless that the "bad" version is still really goddamn good. Card is at least worth the test I think
Most of the spell synergies are still there for this card too, like this is still searchable off of Spellseeker and Mystical Tutor and can be both doubled up out of nowhere with a flipped Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and can still be flashbacked on curve with a Snapcaster Mage on turn 4 to set up a big Living Death on turn 5, however this can notably not be copied on curve and not on turn 4 eot with a Lutri, the Spellchaser which is super rough.
The card seems solid in the early game vs everything except control, where it might sometimes find a Mox/2cmc rock/Jace, Vryn's Prodigy/Wall of Omens, but my main issue with the card is it's such a horrible topdeck past like turn 3 or 4 vs almost every matchup. If this card had like cycling or a sacrifice itself effect for the late game I'd be all over it, but as is I don't think this is scales well enough into the mid and late game in cube.
You also can't grab it off of the new Urza's Saga which is sorta lame, but that's not a real factor in its playability
We play powered, so whoever picks this will always have a mox or piece of power to fetch, and a colorless land that can tap to make 2 giant artifact tokens is frankly insane, that being before you even factor in the potential for Wrenn and Six/Crucible of Worlds/Ramunap Excavator/Life from the Loam/Kiora's Follower/any of the other thousand ways to recur or untap lands in cube. This is a legitimate win condition strapped onto an untapped colorless land.
Only real weaknesses are that it's an enchantment that can be hit by Reclamation Sage/Knight of Autumn/Teferi, Time Raveler/Pest Infestation/etc and it's probably not great if you don't have something to fetch. But tbh I think that's only an issue for unpowered cubes since most decks in powered can typically get one copy of an OG Mox/Black Lotus/Sol Ring/Mana Crypt/Mana Vault or even lesser artifacts like Skullclamp/Pithing Needle/Sensei's Divining Top, and even if they don't somebody else who does will gladly pick this card. It should also be mentioned that Sagas trigger only after the draw phase ends, so if you decide to float mana on the third turn in response to the sacrifice trigger you will still have access to the mana until the end of your first main phase, so if you grab a mox off the tutor this will effectively ramp you an extra colorless mana for the turn at no cost.
Absolutely filthy
Edit: Just realized this also grabs Bomat Courier, this just keeps getting better
We tried it years ago when we were at 540, and it was pretty low impact. Can't necessarily speak on how good it is now with new synergies but I would assume probably not that much better
In my experience Black Vise is really only good in red aggro, and is just kinda awful after turn 2, even if your deck has Wheel of Fortune or Armageddon effects. Card is good when it works in exactly red aggro, but it's just so narrow and wasn't even always worth maindecking so we cut it a while ago.
Not that I think it's super relevant to the discussion, but we also played it before we had power in our cube. I'd have to imagine it's probably even worse now that we play fast mana so opponents can sometimes just dump their hands and eliminate even more potential damage.
We played this card for years but ended up cutting it due to 4-drop density in white. Card wants 2 good high-cmc walkers (or just one expensive and one really powerful mid-cmc backup walker, like grabbing a Gideon Jura/Jace, the Mind Sculptor is completely serviceable as your backup option behind your Ugin, the Ineffable/Elspeth, Sun's Champion/Ugin, the Spirit Dragon) to be good, which was surprisingly easy. Only issue is you have to be able to actually cast the walker in your deck consistently, which makes Rector mostly just a control and combo card (ramp being included in combo).
You don't need sac outlets to make the card good, it's plenty strong in its own, as most slow decks that play white have sweepers and are looking to dissuade attacks early. We cut it for space so we could play stuff from the new sets, but the card is definitely playable at our size imo as long as you have enough planeswalkers worth tutoring for, we just didn't think it was super exciting or necessary.
I should also probably mention that it's pretty solid in some very specific combo decks too for finding your special combo walkers, like Nahiri, the Harbinger in Eldrazi combo decks, Tezzeret the Seeker and Ral Zarek in Time Vault decks, or even Narset, Parter of Veils in your Wheel of Fortune variant combo decks if you happen to support those. That's definitely more narrow and doesn't come up nearly as often as you think it might, but it can be useful sometimes.
We've loved it, card is honestly unreal. I know the card has been ridiculous in Modern and Legacy, and I think it honestly might be even better in cube. It obviously only goes into aggro and midrange decks, and it's not good enough to make you go into white, but I think it's probably the best white 3 imo. I don't think anybody in my playgroup has ever sniped any power with it (although I'm sure that would be super filthy) and it's still great, so I don't think having power in your cube has any big effect on how good this card is.
If you haven't at least tried it, I think you should. The card literally always hits something important, usually on curve. Being hard removal for like 95% of cube nonland permanents is good enough as it is, being strapped to a cheap and tutor-able creature is just stupid. Its basically just Oblivion Ring attached to a 2/2 that you can curve into after your Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and before your Armageddon lol
In the Sedgemoor Witch thread I mentioned swapping her in for Agadeem's Awakening, but we were also testing Hagra Mauling which has only been alright, so I could honestly see us making space to test this. It looks so versatile as a payoff in so many decks, even if it is a little slow. Assuming you get a creature off of each resolution of the effect, the card is completely card parity, so depending on your fatty density this could pretty easily get slotted into all kinds of decks that have otherwise no other constant discard/mill. Like I can imagine a couple scenarios that I might just throw this into my ramp or sneak attack deck if the splash is easy enough.
The more I keep thinking about this card the more I want to try it, can't wait to give it a spin
God damn, green is by far the hardest color to break in our cube, I seriously have no idea what to cut for this. We recently re-added Sakura-Tribe Elder (among a couple other cards) to help bolster support for the RG Wildfire decks, but this card looks awesome and might force the swap. I don't know what else could possibly be the cut, but that one definitely doesn't feel good. This isn't a creature so its way worse than Reclamation Sage, but that card is so great that I'd have to imagine this card is probably still good enough.
We haven't cubed in like a month so we haven't actually updated the list in a while, but we already have the swaps lined up that we wanted to do. Thankfully none of the swaps we cared about were green, but this really throws a wrench in things.
Man Liliana, Death's Majesty has been absolutely fantastic for us in a variety of decks, I don't think they necessarily have to compete for that same slot. With that said, this card does seem pretty good when compared to something like Show and Tell, seeing as most decks really don't have huge payouts to cheat into play given the opportunity if not specifically built around it like your own deck. I'm pretty sure you almost always copy this, which is also a great way to play around counterspells.
Unless I'm missing something doesn't this hit all of the common green fatties?
Could be a Sneak Attack vs Through the Breach situation where the prior is literally a hundred times better than the latter, but its so broken regardless that the "bad" version is still really goddamn good. Card is at least worth the test I think
Most of the spell synergies are still there for this card too, like this is still searchable off of Spellseeker and Mystical Tutor and can be both doubled up out of nowhere with a flipped Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and can still be flashbacked on curve with a Snapcaster Mage on turn 4 to set up a big Living Death on turn 5, however this can notably not be copied on curve and not on turn 4 eot with a Lutri, the Spellchaser which is super rough.
You also can't grab it off of the new Urza's Saga which is sorta lame, but that's not a real factor in its playability
We play powered, so whoever picks this will always have a mox or piece of power to fetch, and a colorless land that can tap to make 2 giant artifact tokens is frankly insane, that being before you even factor in the potential for Wrenn and Six/Crucible of Worlds/Ramunap Excavator/Life from the Loam/Kiora's Follower/any of the other thousand ways to recur or untap lands in cube. This is a legitimate win condition strapped onto an untapped colorless land.
Only real weaknesses are that it's an enchantment that can be hit by Reclamation Sage/Knight of Autumn/Teferi, Time Raveler/Pest Infestation/etc and it's probably not great if you don't have something to fetch. But tbh I think that's only an issue for unpowered cubes since most decks in powered can typically get one copy of an OG Mox/Black Lotus/Sol Ring/Mana Crypt/Mana Vault or even lesser artifacts like Skullclamp/Pithing Needle/Sensei's Divining Top, and even if they don't somebody else who does will gladly pick this card. It should also be mentioned that Sagas trigger only after the draw phase ends, so if you decide to float mana on the third turn in response to the sacrifice trigger you will still have access to the mana until the end of your first main phase, so if you grab a mox off the tutor this will effectively ramp you an extra colorless mana for the turn at no cost.
Absolutely filthy
Edit: Just realized this also grabs Bomat Courier, this just keeps getting better
Not that I think it's super relevant to the discussion, but we also played it before we had power in our cube. I'd have to imagine it's probably even worse now that we play fast mana so opponents can sometimes just dump their hands and eliminate even more potential damage.
You don't need sac outlets to make the card good, it's plenty strong in its own, as most slow decks that play white have sweepers and are looking to dissuade attacks early. We cut it for space so we could play stuff from the new sets, but the card is definitely playable at our size imo as long as you have enough planeswalkers worth tutoring for, we just didn't think it was super exciting or necessary.
I should also probably mention that it's pretty solid in some very specific combo decks too for finding your special combo walkers, like Nahiri, the Harbinger in Eldrazi combo decks, Tezzeret the Seeker and Ral Zarek in Time Vault decks, or even Narset, Parter of Veils in your Wheel of Fortune variant combo decks if you happen to support those. That's definitely more narrow and doesn't come up nearly as often as you think it might, but it can be useful sometimes.
If you haven't at least tried it, I think you should. The card literally always hits something important, usually on curve. Being hard removal for like 95% of cube nonland permanents is good enough as it is, being strapped to a cheap and tutor-able creature is just stupid. Its basically just Oblivion Ring attached to a 2/2 that you can curve into after your Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and before your Armageddon lol
It's already all that without any of the goofy Restoration Angel/Phantasmal Image/etc synergies to repeat the etb
The more I keep thinking about this card the more I want to try it, can't wait to give it a spin
We haven't cubed in like a month so we haven't actually updated the list in a while, but we already have the swaps lined up that we wanted to do. Thankfully none of the swaps we cared about were green, but this really throws a wrench in things.
It's also good to mention that this can technically grab Eldrazi in case you support Shallow Grave/Corpse Dance/Goryo's Vengeance/Makeshift Mannequin Eldrazi combos in black..